Baby for My Stepbrother

Chapter 7

I couldn’t believe he was asking me that. It was, quite possibly, the dumbest question I had ever heard. “Get out, Dane. I don’t care that you have a girl here,” I lied.

He didn’t move after I answered him. Instead, he kept his eyes locked to mine. The corner of his mouth tugged up into a lazy grin, the muscles of his shoulders flexing because of his position he held over the bed.

“That was a stupid response. All you had to do was say something and she’d be gone.” He pushed up from the bed and turned to leave the room.

I wanted to call out to him, but I was too stubborn to speak his name. The asshole was testing me and there was nothing I had to say to him.

He left the room and slammed the door behind him, quickly escorting his date out because the front door slammed a few seconds later. Lying back on my bed, I grabbed my pillow and hugged it to my chest.

It smelled like Dane – like the earthy and masculine cologne he always wore.

Tears welled in my eyes and I threw the pillow across the room because I didn’t want to think about him.

No matter how hard I tried not to think about the baby or Dane, I found myself doing it anyway. Anger flooded me about the girl he had downstairs. I felt like an idiot for feeling the way I did. It was obvious he was only using me for sex.

I fell asleep for about an hour, but woke up feeling like I was going to be sick. My stomach rumbled as I sat up in bed. Tucking my arms around my stomach, I bent forward to relieve the pain.

Luckily, after a few seconds the queasiness went away, replaced by a hunger that had my stomach growling louder than I’d ever heard it. I circled my handover my stomach and said, “Okay, Bean, I’ll feed you.”

After stumbling down the hallway, the stairs and into the kitchen where Dane had entertained his guest earlier, I opened the refrigerator and saw nothing that was outwardly appealing. Choosing to go with a simple peanut butter and jelly, I made the sandwich and sat down to eat it.

Immediately as I took the first bite and swallowed it down, my stomach stopped churning. A groan escaped my lips when I realized this was just the beginning of all the aches, pains and annoyances that came with pregnancy. The doctor had given me a

pamphlet explaining the general symptoms to expect, but she also recommended I pickup books on the subject as well. As I chewed my sandwich, I wondered if I really wanted to know what to expect.

Finishing off the food, I sat back in the chair and stared at the space where I’d seen Dane’s date laughing and flirting her bimbo ass off early that night. Anger pulled at me, my stomach starting to churn the sandwich that I’d just eaten.

Placing my hands on my abdomen, I imagined little Bean in there, floating around happily as his tiny heart beat strong. What would he …or she …want me to do? Was it fair for me to keep the secret from Dane and to make decisions that would affect the child’s life without the input of the father?

Would Dane even care?

“What do you think, Little Bean? Should we tell Daddy?”

No voice responded, no tiny words that told me what decision I should make. My eyes flicked back to the seat where that woman had been sitting and the anger I felt caused me to recoil. Was it jealousy brought on by the pregnancy hormones? Or was it the fact that, in truth, I’d started developing feelings for a man that would only end up breaking my heart?

Either way, I was selfish not to tell him – and I was a coward not to tell him as well.

Pushing up from the table, I made my decision. Even if my plan was still squarely seated on the coward side of the line, at least the information would be out and I could move on with making difficult decisions without the weight of my lies settling on my pregnant shoulders.

Slowly, I climbed the stairs, turning left down the hallway to retrieve the sonograms from the bag in my room. Glancing down at Little Bean, I kissed the image and breathed out a heavy sigh.

Moving back out into the hallway, I walked the few steps between my room and Dane’s room, flicking on his light as I entered his space and stood in front of his bed. As usual, the bed was neatly made with nothing out of place. Dane was always a neat freak – always in control of everything around him.

Laying the sonograms in the center of his bed, I knew he would see them as soon as he walked in.

They were an object out of place – a piece of his life that he hadn’t yet wrestled under his control. They would standout to him immediately and they would be my message to him that he would soon be a father.

Walking back out of the room, I returned to my bed and laid my body down on the mattress, bundling myself up in thick blanket as if it could protect me from Dane’s reaction to the pictures when he returned home.

To Be Continued …